<p><img
src="https://www.instantdb.com/img/emails/oct2025/s_DF8F10A9009F2A236BC7D07C4EC05DDA50E4FB82F40AA98593D3B98A1A7EA3DC_1730238267270_instant_header.png" /></p>
<p>Hey crew! It’s time for another edition of Instant News 🙂 Here’s a
slice of what happened last month!</p>
<p><strong>Guest Authentication</strong></p>
<p><img
src="https://www.instantdb.com/img/emails/oct2025/s_6E082F007AE9AD0868C28574407BB3B75F0499E083CAED1B5165D941BDFD62C8_1762799995355_frame-1-bordered.png" /></p>
<p>Instant now supports guest authentication! This allows your users to
try your app before signing up and ensures they can keep all their data
when they decide to create a full account with their email.</p>
<p>Use <strong><code>db.auth.signInAsGuest()</code></strong> to create a
new guest user. This will create a new guest user with an id, but no
email address.</p>
<p>When a guest user is ready to create a permanent account, you can use
any of Instant’s sign-in methods. The guest user will be automatically
upgraded to a full user.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.instantdb.com/docs/auth/guest-auth">Check out
the docs</a> to see a full example!</p>
<p><strong>Expo Rules</strong></p>
<p><img
src="https://www.instantdb.com/img/emails/oct2025/s_6E082F007AE9AD0868C28574407BB3B75F0499E083CAED1B5165D941BDFD62C8_1762800303125_frame-1__1_-bordered.png" /></p>
<p>We released <strong><code>create-instant-app</code></strong> in
September with support for scaffolding Next apps with rules for LLMs. We
we have the same experience for Expo! When you run
<strong><code>create-instant-app</code></strong> with the expo template
you’ll get a fully working mobile app backed by Instant. You’ll also be
able get an expo-specific rules file for your agent of choice.</p>
<p>If you ever wanted to try building a mobile app, this can be a really
easy way to give it a shot!</p>
<p><strong>Upgraded CLI</strong></p>
<p><img
src="https://www.instantdb.com/img/emails/oct2025/s_6E082F007AE9AD0868C28574407BB3B75F0499E083CAED1B5165D941BDFD62C8_1762820177786_rename-cli.png" /></p>
<p><strong><code>instant-cli</code></strong> got a huge upgrade last
month! You can now delete and rename columns simply by pushing schema
via <strong><code>instant-cli push schema</code></strong>. This means
you can now manage all your schema operations from the terminal.</p>
<p><strong>Soft Deletes</strong></p>
<p><img
src="https://www.instantdb.com/img/emails/oct2025/s_6E082F007AE9AD0868C28574407BB3B75F0499E083CAED1B5165D941BDFD62C8_1762802439157_CleanShot+2025-11-10+at+11.20.282x.png" /></p>
<p>We know how heavily requested deletes and renames from the CLI have
been. We were worried about destructive operations though: what if you
accidentally deleted the wrong column or namespace?</p>
<p>To solve this, we shipped soft deletes as well. Whenever you delete
an attribute you’ll have two days to recover it before it gets fully
deleted. This should make it much safer to run delete commands</p>
<p><strong>And a few more things!</strong></p>
<p>Here’s a few more wins that got shipped thanks to your feedback!</p>
<ul>
<li>We now support <a
href="https://www.instantdb.com/docs/auth/github-oauth">login with
Github!</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.instantdb.com/essays/count_min_sketch">We
published a new essay</a> on count-min sketches. We use this data
structure to power statistics to speed up our query plans</li>
<li>We <a href="https://www.instantdb.com/examples/todos">released a
tutorial</a> + live coding video building a todo app from scratch with
Instant.</li>
<li>You can now save and share sandboxes in the dashboard!</li>
<li>Profile pictures are now part of
<strong><code>$users</code></strong> table for users who authenticate
via Google and/or LinkedIn Auth.</li>
</ul>
